How much gold do Pakistanis own?

South Asians love their gold. That's a fact.

They've been buying and holding it long before headlines about gold being among the "best-performing" assets were common. Also, a fact.

But a recent report by Morgan Stanley, a global financial services company, that tried to quantify this love by estimating gold held by Indian households was shocking nonetheless. According to Morgan Stanley, Indian families collectively hold a whopping $3.8 trillion worth of gold, roughly 89% of India’s GDP.

Nukta's team then had a burning question: how much gold do Pakistani families hold? The process to come up with even an estimate was formidable.

Nukta consulted over a dozen analysts and market professionals. Their consensus was unequivocal: no official estimate exists on Pakistan’s privately held gold. Minimal official imports further complicate any attempt to gauge the true extent of the nation’s household bullion reserves.

Yet, provisional assessments have surfaced. A cohort of analysts, including Shan Saeed, chief economist at IQI Global (Malaysia), estimate that Pakistani households may collectively own between $35 billion and $40 billion worth of gold.

Saeed noted that with global gold prices surging nearly 63% in 2025 alone, Pakistani families have benefited from significant appreciation in their holdings.

“Gold remains the quintessential safe-haven asset, a store of value in volatile times and a cultural constant in marriages and festive occasions. We projected a price trajectory toward $4,000 an ounce several months ago, which materialized this year.

“The next leg could see gold advancing to $5,000 by mid-2026. Gold is the only asset class with zilch counterparty risk,” he commented.

Alternative estimations, applying India’s household gold-to-population ratio, produce inflated and unrealistic figures exceeding $700 billion — far above Pakistan’s GDP of roughly $411 billion.

Analysts quickly dismissed this as mathematically untenable, citing cultural, behavioral, and consumption differences: Indians are traditionally more prolific gold buyers and investors, while Pakistan’s demand is largely ceremonial and event-driven.

Nonetheless, extrapolating from multiple informal data points, several experts converge on a realistic range of $40 billion to $70 billion in household gold wealth.

Historical guesstimates once suggested that Pakistanis collectively hold 3,000 to 5,000 tonnes of gold, a figure never formally audited but broadly consistent with the prevailing global price of around $4,200 per ounce.

From a trade perspective, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics reported that the country imported 391 kilograms of gold in FY25, up from 262 kilograms a year earlier, a volume largely destined for jewellery manufacturing and subsequent re-exports.

In the first quarter of the current fiscal year, no official gold imports were recorded, compared with 104 kilograms during the same period last year.